WikiLeaks and Its October Surprise

WIKIBUST — Cory Bennett reported on the WikiLeaks much-hyped new conference early Tuesday morning saying it was not what its supporters and Hillary Clinton’s critics hoped would damage her chances at the presidency, even driving the Twitter hashtag #octobersurprise.

But instead of revealing new documents, the event was an hour-plus-long infomercial celebrating the activist group’s 10th anniversary, with speakers extolling the virtues of WikiLeaks and its past achievements. Founder Julian Assange appeared via video at the Berlin event, wearing a shirt with the word ‘truth’ printed on it. ‘I’ve seen the internet and I understand there are enormous expectations in the United States,’ he said.

“But, he explained, ‘if we’re going to make a major publication’ in the U.S., ‘we don’t do it at 3 a.m.’ He still promised more documents ahead, including information ‘affecting three powerful organizations in three different states, as well as, of course, information previously referred to about the U.S. election process.’ Assange said the organization would publish documents on various subjects every week for the next 10 weeks, and vowed that the U.S. election-related documents would all come out before Election Day on Nov. 8.”

—@wikileaks at 5:20 a.m.: “#Assange: Regarding upcoming publications… We hope to be publishing every week for the next 10 weeks. #wikileaks10”

–@daveweigel at 5:35 a.m.: “If you translate Assange’s ahm-uhm-ahm stammering into morse code it reveals Hillary’s role in 9/11.

It is my opinion that Wikileaks is a dangerous organization – they traffic in stolen government documents and in my mind right up there with trafficking in drugs. One of their first “hits” involved thousands of State Department’s classified documents from our Embassies around the world. These were analysis of countries and their leaders and when they were leaks it caused embarrassment and problems with countries that we wanted to trust us. To me, the releasing of those State Department documents was nothing short of treason and put State Department employees in danger.

For months, every week, Assange appears on Twitter and makes the empty threat of “something is going to be released” in October. And this is what the much waited on press conference was all about. Nothing!